It’s one thing to keep your passwords in some kind personal ‘vault’—your file cabinet, a safety deposit box, some obscure file on your own computer. But when you rely on an online service to to do that storage function for you, you’re trusting the service itself—that it’s secure, protected, confidential, and trustworthy. You’re trusting that service’s employees. You’re trusting every potential competitor for that service, that in a takeover situation, they’ll handle your most important data the same way the original service did. But most importantly, you’re trusting the entire Internet, since such a service is really just a BIG FAT TARGET!!!

Well, the last password you’ll ever need is now really the 2nd to last password you’ll every need. LastPass got hacked.

I’m sorry I just couldn’t resist such a great pun. I read on Forbes.com yesterday that Larry Ellison of Oracle has hired disgraced ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd. Yup, the sexual harassment poster child has landed a seat (and a big pay day) on the Oracle board. Ellison claims he chose Hurd because quote:

Mark did a brilliant job at H-P

Yeah right. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that they are close friends, and Ellison is probably responsible for advising Hurd to settle his lawsuit privately and without telling the HP board. Makes perfect sense. Besides, now Larry Ellison won’t be the biggest target asshole at Oracle anymore. All I can say is ladies beware.

April 06, 2010By:
ERITAS News ServicecloseAuthor: ERITAS News ServiceName: David GowEmail: mrblog@kinetic.seattle.wa.usSite:http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/blogAbout: I am a policy analyst currently working in the field of environmental protection. Other activities include: Advocacy of public transit, including advanced technologies such as APMs and Personal Rapid Transit (aka 'podcars'). Writing political humor at "Wiseline Institute and Center For The Secular Humorism," and enviro-blogging at "This Week In Precipitation" on Zaproot. I also serve on the steering committees of the Greater Greenwood Bi-Peds, a grassroots group promoting pedestrian and bicycle safety in Seattle, and SoundPRT, an ad hoc Seattle group advocating podcars.See Authors Posts (352)Category: Blogging, Humor, Politics, Satire, Technology3 Comments →

President Obama is creating an economic disaster, a prominent Tea Party activist said today.

“Long lines for bread, clothing and toilet paper were common in the Soviet Union and now we’re seeing the same sort of thing here — long Apple Store lines means socialism has arrived,” movement leader Mike Vanderfrandle wrote in his well-known blog Americans Seeing Socialism Everywhere in Society (A.S.S.E.S.).

Interviewed by PC Üser Alles magazine, Vanderfrandle cited recent occurrences of long store lines in many parts of the country as evidence of shortages.

Vanderfrandle said he had a realization when he saw TV news coverage of customers waiting all night outside Apple Stores for the introduction of the company’s highly anticipated iPad tablet computer.

“I realized it had to have been caused by the Obama Administration’s tax and health care policies,” said Vanderfrandle, “a socialist, big-government fascist conspiracy against us in the Tea Party who only learned to type with two fingers.”

Explaining that he currently dictates his blog to a third grade student who can type, Vanderfrandle said a touchscreen computer would make A.S.S.E.S. and other right-wing bloggers more self-reliant. “An iPad just needs one finger to use, so obviously the Democrat Party has to prevent us from getting our hands on iPads,” he said.

Vanderfrandle doesn’t believe claims that lines at Apple Stores are long only because the iPad is so popular. “If it’s so popular why didn’t they simply make more of them in the first place? No, it can’t be a coincidence that this so-called shortage happened right after passage of Obamacare.”

And has Vanderfrandle ordered an iPad himself?

“Are you crazy? I’m on Social Security disability and Food Stamps, I can’t afford an iPad.”

In a closely related story, Vanderfrandle has blogged that all Tea Party bloggers should get iPads to replace their harder to use PCs. “Break Dell, Gateway, and HP! Break their Windows 7. Break them NOW. Reboot and break them again,” he wrote.

J.D. Salinger — Yes I have read Catcher in the Rye, and…no, I didn’t particularly like it. But there is no questioning that the American literary landscape is poorer now that Salinger has passed away. Hopefully rumors of a huge catalog of unpublished works are true and that we’ll now see some of those works in print.

Jean Simmons — Everyone has a favorite actress from the ‘golden era’ of American cinema. People like to talk about Liz Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Grace Kelly, or Ingrid Bergman. But for me, it was always Jean Simmons, a great beauty and a great, though perhaps not the greatest, actress of her generation. Ms. Simmons died last Friday at the age of 80.

The Mars Spirit Rover — Anyone who’s read Ragebot! (or before that Blognonymous) knows that I’m a big fan of the Mars Rovers. Without exception, Spirit and Opportunity are the most successful vehicles of space exploration ever built. Designed to last only 3 months, these complex scientific platforms have been trundling across the martian surface, doing their thing, for over 6 YEARS! Well, early this week, the Spirit operations team at JPL announced that their attempts to get the rover ‘unstuck’ from a sand pit were unsuccessful, and that, henceforth, they would concentrate on keeping Spirit alive through the martian winter. It’s roving is over, but hopefully Spirit will live on as a stationary science lab.

Microsoft has got a whole new spin on pricing models for their software and services. They’re going to charge prices that are inversely related to the perceived influence of the purchaser. So…if you’re Walt Mossberg (personal technology reviewer for the Wall Street Journal) you’re gonna get your personal copies of Office and Windoze 7 for…well…free. The rest of us schmucks? Well let’s just say that, wielding zero influence, we can expect to have to pay through the nose for Microsoft’s crappy products.

December 16, 2009By:
ERITAS News ServicecloseAuthor: ERITAS News ServiceName: David GowEmail: mrblog@kinetic.seattle.wa.usSite:http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/blogAbout: I am a policy analyst currently working in the field of environmental protection. Other activities include: Advocacy of public transit, including advanced technologies such as APMs and Personal Rapid Transit (aka 'podcars'). Writing political humor at "Wiseline Institute and Center For The Secular Humorism," and enviro-blogging at "This Week In Precipitation" on Zaproot. I also serve on the steering committees of the Greater Greenwood Bi-Peds, a grassroots group promoting pedestrian and bicycle safety in Seattle, and SoundPRT, an ad hoc Seattle group advocating podcars.See Authors Posts (352)Category: DINOs, Employment, Health, Humor, Politics, Satire, Technology4 Comments →

The fierce competition to determine the site of a second North Pole production line has been won by South Carolina.

The announcement was made yesterday by Northex, the North Pole’s Oslo-based holding company that also owns Kris Kringle Worldwide and Rudolph Organic Compost.

“South Carolina has shown us it offers the best business and labor climate for our expanded operations,” said Angelina Claus, Northex CFO and wife of Santa Claus for 371 years. “Also, they threw everything at Santa in terms of tax breaks and other incentives” to build the new toy factory in the Palmetto State, she said.

South Carolina officials, decked out in pointed slippers, velvet breeches, belled hats, and other gay apparel, gathered in the state capitol of Columbia for celebrations that stretched late into the night. “South Carolina puts the SC in ‘Santa Claus’ — and ‘Christmas,’ now that you mention it,” said a jubilant Gov. Mark Sanford.

It was Sanford’s personal, secret negotiation of a trade pact in Argentina earlier this year that sealed the deal. Now having a physical corporate presence in South Carolina gives Claus an opening into the lucrative Argentinian toy market currently, controlled by competitor Father Christmas.

Other incentives committed by the state include tax exemptions on in-state purchase of reindeer fuel and gift wrap, and a waiver of environmental regulations for Santa’s capital projects. In addition to the new assembly plant in Charleston, Santa also has plans for a three-runway sleighport and a new project for his Nat King Coal division, which would be the world’s largest open pit mine.

Santa Claus went looking for a new production site earlier this year after negotiations with the elf union, the Arctic Federation of Labor, broke down over the AFL’s refusal to agree to a no work stoppages deal. Santa had demanded the provision after stoppages caused expensive delays in the Barbie’s Dreamliner program.

State House Speaker Bobby Harrell summed up the state’s victory: “Today, South Carolina kicked the asses of a bunch of greedy little elves.”

In contrast, the decision has touched off a firestorm north of Canada.

“Christmas is ruined,” said Elf spokesman Gruffudd Greenbuckle said, and went on to say that work stoppages were a phony issue.

“Periodically elves have to perform a little dance, while singing merry toybuilding worksongs. It’s in our DNA, and it only takes about a minute at the top of every hour, everyone knows this,” said Greenbuckle.

“Santa used it as an excuse to betray our centuries of loyalty, and is blatantly cutting costs at the expense of the little guy,” said the three foot tall Greenbuckle. “Health insurance reform with a strong public option would do more to lower costs,” he said.

Greenbuckle and other elf leaders are calling upon federal lawmakers to intercede. “Keep the North Pole at the North Pole, we say ‘let’s stay together’,” Pole City Mayor Holly Mistletoe wrote in an e-mail to Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), chairman of the House Oversight of Holiday Observances Committee (HOHO Committee). A spokesman for Green said his committee would take up the issue after the holiday recess.

However, elf assistance legislation is a non-starter in the Senate, according to Homeland Security Committee chairman Joe Lieberman (Connecticut for Lieberman-CT).

“Christmas, shmistmas. The North Pole is an axis, with elves whose union supports the public option. Protecting America from this axis of elf evil is my top priority,” Lieberman said.

Everyone has their panties in a twist over rumors of this upcoming Apple Tablet, but has anyone actually stopped to think about how Apple’s going to address all the potential issues? Because there are quite a few.

Think about it: the rumors are of essentially a gigantic iPod Touch with a 3G connection. It’s a web tablet, right? But we live in a time where $300 netbooks are the norm. Are people going to really be willing to part with $800 for a gussied-up netbook with a touchscreen and Apple design?

Are you kidding me? If Steve Jobs put caca in a unibody aluminum case and called it iPoo, people would buy it. In fact, the lemmings that love all things Mac would queue up for days in front of the Apple stores—and I say this as devoted Apple laptop owner.